Nonnie Augustine is the author of two books. Her first poetry collection, One Day Tells its Tale to Another was named by Kirkus Review as a "Best of Indie 2013." Her new book, To See Who's There, published in August, 2017, is a collection of poems and short prose. Both books are available at Amazon.com. There is more information and reviews at http://www.nonnieaugustine.com/.

“The United States. The budget. Who understands trillions, really? The 2010 census counted 310,300 million of us. No wonder we don’t agree. The 1790 census counted 3,929,214 for the Founding Fathers and their ilk to deal with.”

Drago ate some sweet potato, then said, “That 1790 number would probably have excluded women and had some nefarious way to count slaves. No Native Americans, of course.”

“Oh, right, but look, rounding off today’s population to 4 million, give or take, we’d come out with 77 ½ countries.”

“You’re just carrying these figures around in your head?”

“Well, no. They’re in my pocket. I’ve been thinking about this-doing some figuring. I’m fed up with having to share my country with so many fidiots.”

“What were fidiots, again?”

“Fucking idiots, but I know you’d rather we didn’t swear.”

“Doesn’t work for us, dear. Or maybe it’s a ‘what would Mother say?’ thing. So, what do you have in mind, actually?”

“De-uniting. Regrouping. Starting over in re-sorted ballparks.

Like, for instance, there could be a little country we could live in where education, healthcare, and military spending (not much, because we wouldn’t need it because we’d be in a little country) would get sensible support. Still a democracy and all, but billionaires would be frowned upon. Ostracized, even.” Nonnie dipped her last piece of pork into her applesauce. She always finished meals first. “No. Wait. I know. We could still have capitalism, but after an individual’s income reaches say, a couple of million, they’d have to stop accumulating and start giving. Details could be worked out by smart humanitarians and all, but there certainly wouldn’t be any need to put the mentally ill out on the streets, for example. It’d be great!

And, uh, the trickle-down types could live in one of the 77 ½ countries that just love billionaires! See how that works out for them.”

Drago, who was feeding Blossom bits from his plate by now, and who always gave his sister’s ideas a thoughtful hearing, said, “All these places would have to have names. There should probably be a rule that no one could pick ‘The United States of America,’ by the way. Nonnie, there are a lot of details to be ironed out.”